If you are one of the handful of people who have been following developments on this blog for months, you may remember that at one point we were working with liberal blogger David Thielen to co-sponsor an online debate between Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer.
In mid-February, David took the lead in sending out invitations to both camps, with my name attached to show that it was a bipartisan effort. On March 18, Bob Schaffer agreed to participate (see also here). Meanwhile, I was told that for weeks the Mark Udall team had dragged its feet and essentially said, "Maybe."
On several occasions I put up posts essentially asking "why in the world is Udall refusing to join a bipartisan online debate?" Well, at long last, here's the answer.
Two weeks after Bob Schaffer's acceptance - on April Fool's Day, in fact - David informed me of the Mark Udall team's official response. Out of deference to David's wishes, I didn't mention the email or divulge its contents publicly - that is, until this weekend when David gave me the green light to explain why Udall refused to join the debate those many weeks ago: The Boulder Democrat didn't want yours truly as the moderator. The alleged reason? The use of the tag "Udall as a Liar" on this blog.
Attempts to find a suitable alternative conservative co-moderator failed:
